I haven't been over here lately; been busy with other things.

Let's see... all three of the Ball Pythons are healthy and doing fine. I finally figured out Dixie's feeding preferences. The folks I bought her from had said they'd been feeding her live, and all my attempts so far to feed her frozen have been unsuccessful. I e-mailed the dealer a week and a half ago, but never heard back from them. I'm not sure if the message ended up lost in the holiday weekend shuffle, or if they simply weren't concerned enough to bother replying.

I had tried her on a live rat a while back, but she seemed more intimidated by it than interested. She was plenty big enough to take it (she's pushing 3 foot), but when she showed no interest in it, I removed it from the enclosure before it could turn the tables and chew on her.

We visited a new pet shop in town tonight, and they had mice on special for 88 cents. I decided "what the heck... for 88 cents, if she doesn't eat it, Phil or Magellan will". When I dropped it in her enclosure, it started nosing around her hide and she struck at it, more of a "don't get too close" strike. The mouse fled to the opposite corner, and Dixie immediately crawled out and started positioning herself. She slowly kept bringing a bit more of her body into position, zig-zagging herself in preparation to strike out, and just waited until the mouse finally ventured close enough. When it did, I was pleased to see her hit it, hold it, and constrict it.

It wasn't much more than a snack for a snake her size, but it's the only thing she's eaten since I brought her home in mid March. Now that I know she'll eat live mice, I can start working on switching her over to PK, and hopefully eventually to PK rats. I'm guessing now that she was only fed live mice, and as yet she still doesn't associate the rat smell with food. I'll give her some time to digest the small mouse, and try her on a F/T mouse and see if I can coax her into taking that.

On other news, I'm probably going to end up with another BP, as a co-worker's niece has one that she thinks is "too mean" and just wants to find a new home for it. It sounds like it's younger than Phil and Magellan (Phil is about a year now, and I think Magellan is a bit younger), so I'm hoping with a little patience and work, I can calm it down to be handleable again.